Features
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R+E Cycles Turns 40 and Brings Back the E
By Christine Soja Angel Rodriguez and Glenn Erickson weren’t trying to establish a long-run custom bike shop when they banded together in 1973 — they were merely two broke guys with an abundance of hair, trying to make a living doing what they loved and knew how to do — fix bikes. Current owner, Dan Towle, had no idea he would one day own and run R+E Cycles when he first came to work there in 1987, but it’s easy to see how it happened. Read More
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Building the U.S. Bicycle Route System in Washington
By Barb Chamberlin and Louise McGrody, Bicycle Alliance of Washington Imagine an interstate highway system for bicycles — officially recognized and signed bike routes that crisscross our country. This network of bike routes follows a mix of state highways, scenic byways, quiet country roads, trails and city streets. They connect cities and towns, parks, landmarks, and other popular destinations, and travel through some of the best scenery that America has to offer. This is no pipe dream. We’re describing the U.S. Bicycle Route System (USBRS), and portions of it already exist today. Read More
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Cycling BC Delivers an Exciting Calendar
By Nicole Rocheford, Communications & Events Coordinator British Columbia promises to deliver the best adrenaline-driven races this season with more than 500 events presented across the province. Whether racing against the clock down a steep mountain side or against seven others on a 250m dirt track, setting the pace in a pack of more than 100, pushing the limit of endurance in an epic race though technical singletrack or battling the cold and wet weather through mud pits and over barriers, the adrenaline is undeniable, and BC’s got it all. Read More
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Obliteride: A Movement to Fight Cancer
By Katie Hawkins If Seattlites haven’t already, soon they will start to notice things around the city are turning a little orange. Banners brighten buildings, cyclists sport tangerine, billboards pop against gray skies, and skyscrapers might start radiating a warm glow. Something big is coming. In its inaugural year, Obliteride is an entire weekend of cycling and celebration dedicated to raising money to accelerate research at the Fred Hutchinson Cancer Research Center, one of the top cancer research centers in the world, located in South Lake Union. Read More
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The Vegetarian Athlete
By Ellen K. Chow, MS, RD, CSSD, CD Being a well-balanced vegetarian is not easy. Being a well-balanced vegetarian athlete is even more challenging. The good news is that it is possible and rewarding with some practice. There is certainly no lack of vegetarian world-class athletes, from runners to bodybuilders. Not only can this choice be good for your health, it is also eco-friendly and gives that “doing the right thing” feeling. Read More
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Product Reviews: Craft PB Featherlight Jacket and Motorex Dry Lube
By Darren Dencklau Craft’s Performance Bike line “embraces riders who live their sport.” The company’s Performance Bike Featherlight jacket is designed for the positioning and movements of cyclists and has longer arms and a longer tail for better coverage while hunkered down in the saddle. Other features include a small back pocket, elastic cuffs, a fleece neckband, reflective panels on all sides, ventilation panels, and it is lightweight and easily pack-able. The material is made of polyamide and polyester. Read More
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Riding the Steens Mountain Loop — The Highest Road in the Pacific Northwest
By Peter J. Marsh On a Sunday morning with the rain hammering against the window, I decided to hold off on my daily ride and do something else cycling-related. I decided to pull out a box filled with the bike stories I had saved from the 1990s and began throwing out the faded reports of long forgotten rides and races, including some I had written myself. I came across the story I wrote 20 years ago about my first big trail ride, over Steens Mountain in Southeast Oregon via the 9,500-foot summit ridge. Read More
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VetBikes.org Wants Your Parts
By Cailey Nickerson In July 2012, Air Force veteran and casual cyclocross racer Andy Newman decided to build on his passion for cycling to help those in need. The result was VetBikes.org, a project of The Veterans Family Fund of America, a 501(c)3 nonprofit organization that builds bikes for military veterans who in one way or another have found solace through cycling. In only six months, they have built more than16 personally tailored bicycles, most valued between $1,000 and $1,500, for recent medically discharged soldiers. Read More
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Reaching for the Bars
By Dan Towle R+E Cycles Every bike has a stem holding the handlebars in place. In my youth, a lot of us referred to the stem as the “goose neck.” They come in many varieties, shapes, sizes and colors. Older bikes used different looking stems than found on modern bikes, but the purpose is still exactly the same ... they secure the handlebars to the bike. So will the steering be negatively affected if you change the stem? Read More
Opinions
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Desperate Measures
By Maynard Hershon Phil started getting terrible headaches. They hurt so bad he could hardly ride his bike. He had no appetite and he snapped at people; his friends quit calling. Doctor after doctor tried and failed to cure him. He kept riding, shorter and shorter distances; the awful headaches made it hard to concentrate on the road. Soon he had to give up the bike. Phil decided then that the time had come for desperate measures. Read More
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A Shining Moment On Mt. Hood - How To Ride Through Winter In The Middle Of July
By Joe Kurmaskie Pacific Northwesterners did not invent clever titles for athletic events, but it was wordsmith worship that attracted me to my first Summit To Surf diabetes charity bike ride. With its catchy name, I fully expected to drive to the top of a mountain, plant a front fork at the driveway of Mt. Hood’s historic Timberline Lodge, then clip in for a bone shaking ride, a near-vertical run, some sort of a tuck-and-go-like-hell, all the way to the Oregon Coast. Read More
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Alba Road
By Maynard Hershon If you ride alone or with friends who may not be as serious as you are, you can misjudge where you fit in cycling’s performance pecking order. Only in racing, where everyone is there for the same reason and ostensibly doing their best, can you tell where you stand. I found out where I stood on a climb in my first stage race — in 1976. Read More
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Ghost Bike
By Joe Kurmaskie It fit me like a glove. As if I’d worked with one of those professionals who sizes riders, matching them to the perfect bike for their height, weight and bone length. Meticulous, exacting, often humorless ... The Bianchi arrived unannounced — a solid cardboard box on the porch and a formal envelope sporting a return address from a law firm out of the Midwest. My heart skips a beat whenever lawyers get involved ... in anything. Read More
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In the Draft
By Maynard Hershon When I started cycling (on a too-tall borrowed bicycle), I realized I could ride OK. I could roll along as well as most people and climb better than many more experienced cyclists. I had aptitude, as my mother might’ve said. I read the magazines and haunted shops looking for a bike of my own. I bought what was then called a neo-pro bicycle, an entry-level racing-style road bike. At that point, I knew enough to buy a bike, cleated shoes and a pair of wool shorts, but my cycling education had only begun. Read More
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The Selfish Act Of Riding A Bicycle
By Joe Kurmaskie While tuning up my wife's bike, her daily commute as a school teacher about to begin, one of the neighbor kids stood off to the side for a few minutes, looking like he wanted to ask me something. That or use the bathroom. We were standing in the August sun, tools and tubes and tires spread out from the carport to the grass. "Why do you guys ride your bikes so much?" Not why do you love riding your bikes so much? Not what does it feel like to ride so much? He'd gotten to the root of it. Read More
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RAGBRAI, Almost
By Maynard Hershon It’s Sunday afternoon, the last day of the Tour de France. I was supposed to be in Iowa today, visiting friends and preparing to ride the last four days of RAGBRAI, but my trip fell apart Monday evening. This was the plan: My bike and I would board an Amtrak train, the California Zephyr, here in Denver at 7 p.m. on Saturday, July 23. I’d get off in Osceola Iowa on Sunday morning, the 24th. At the Amtrak station my trip came apart. Read More
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The Worst and Best of Us
By Joe Kurmaskie Those first moments after discovering that your bike has been stolen, those are the ones that hang out there in suspended animation. Time slows down, and not in a hip Hollywood action montage kind of way. Disbelief mixes with confusion that reluctantly gives way to the dawning realization that you’ve been pinched. You go through a compressed version of the five stages of grief right there on the street, or the Safeway parking lot or your own backyard. This is followed by any variation of the “people suck” dance. Mine involves swearing as I kick something, then spitting at the ground. Read More
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I See by Your Bicycle — Part Two
By Maynard Hershon I promised another article on how bikes and riders look to me. Here it is. If it points an accusing finger at you or your bike, I apologize for any hurt feelings. These are the observations of an old roadie who has been watching cyclists and their equipment for decades but sometimes gets it wrong. Read More
